Today we began our new inquiry into floating and sinking. In the morning before my students arrived I set up a container filled with water and a selection of objects around it. I had a sign at the top that said 'float or sink'.
I didn't direct their attention to it, I just allowed them to discover it in their own time. This is one of the conversations I overheard:
"Oh what, there is a whole lot of water in here....." He inspects it closer and reads the sign, "sink or float? Oh thats easy this will sink, float, sink, sink etc"
When we started our topic in the afternoon I introduced students to the word 'float' we talked about what this was and I related this to swimming at the beginning of the year and when we were practicing. I think introduced them to 'sink' and we decided what it meant. I explained that we were going to be doing an experiment and making predictions - at this point I should have modelled what I wanted them to do (I just assumed they would remember from previous lessons - NEVER assume!)
I had a variety of objects around the room that students had to collect with their buddy and then they took them out side. I had a container set up for each pair. Students had to first predict what they thought their object would do and then second test it.
Students worked through their list and once they were finished I gave them to test 3 objects of their choice.
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| Click on photo for a copy of sheet. |
Once everyone was complete (I cut it a little short for some as it was just to hot outside for them) we came back in and shared what we had found. For student who disagreed we tested them in the class tub to find our conclusion.
To finish we added any questions we had after doing our experiment (I hope to add more as the week goes on):
- Why do rubber bands sink and float?
- Why do some things sink and some float?
- Why does the tennis ball float when it is heavy?
Thursday
Today we were looking at why somethings float and some things float. We figured out that our tennis ball is heavy but it has air inside that helps it to stay afloat.
We found out that there is a small amount of air trapped in a rubber band that helps it to float. Once the air gets out the water fills in the spots and helps it to sink.
I found some really great interactive games online that my students could experiment with a larger variety of material. They did this in pairs, having turn about on the computer. The ones we used are below:
We ran out of time to get through all I had planned so we will be continuing our unit on Monday.
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